


Low Angle

by Locksnek



Series: UngNa dumpster fires [4]
Category: The Dark Crystal (1982), The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (TV)
Genre: Other, actually mostly dialogue and internal monologue, finally someone appreciates SkekTek (but at what cost), i do not condone these behaviors, inappropriate body horror fetishes, mild but disgusting sexual content, mutilation references, passing references to to vastly more disgusting sexual content, political scheming, the tags make it sound like 120 days of sodom sorry just wanted to be thorough, torture references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:14:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24831430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Locksnek/pseuds/Locksnek
Summary: On the heels of Stone-in-the-Wood.  New general, new army, new alliance.SkekUng consistently behaves rather grossly in this story, please observe tags.(Addendum Feb 2021 - this was the first story I wrote with skekUng and skekNa, and my characterizations of them have evolved significantly since then, so I probably don't stand by everything I wrote here.)
Relationships: SkekUng/SkekNa, implied SkekUng/SkekTek
Series: UngNa dumpster fires [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1823725
Comments: 29
Kudos: 15





	1. SkekNa

**Author's Note:**

> The title is literally the camera directions in the script each time Ung, Na, and Tek are shown together in the Trial by Stone scene in TDC.
> 
> Addendum Feb 2021 - this was the first story I wrote with skekUng and skekNa, and my characterizations of them have evolved significantly since then, so I probably don't stand by everything I wrote here. My initial conception of the UngNa ship was pretty simple ("what if the two worst Skeksis were dating LOL") and it has, uh, become a lot more to me in the past eight months or so. I'm not keen on altering this story to be more consistent, though; I'm here to have fun and indulge my fucked up whimsy, not to be my usual anal-retentive self with regards to the quality of my bibliography.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SkekUng and SkekNa have found circumstances at the Castle much changed.

SkekNa

“General, eh?” SkekNa squints with his one extant eye at the much larger Skeksis tangled in his bedclothes. SkekUng is a temperamental brute, but he respects SkekNa after some measure, perhaps because the former knows in whatever counts for his heart that he himself could never have endured such mutilation, torment, humiliation as SkekNa has had to bear up under. SkekUng grumps loudly at the remark–as he does at most phrases directed toward him, as though the very act of attempting to communicate with him is a grave affront.

Yet, SkekUng isn’t truly displeased in this instance. “Yes, you heard SkekSo as well as I did,” the newly-dubbed General points out after a prolonged pause. “Long time coming, too.”

“Not an hour ago,” SkekNa quips, his wince mostly one of amusement when SkekUng turns over with a lurch to grip him by the throat. 

“Stow your wits, one-eye, you’re a slaver, not an entertainer.”

“To think you believe me as crass as you. A mere slaver, indeed.” SkekNa nips along the underside of SkekUng’s jaw with a vaguely bored look. “And yet, what is to be expected from one with such poor sense of decorum–”

“You haven’t _seen_ poor decorum–”

“No ear for music–”

“And that’s to be forgiven, I suppose, given you’re but half-sighted–”

“–As suits a great General,” SkekNa concludes with an unlooked-for flattery, stopping SkekUng in his tracks. “Persons such as you, my lord, have no time for niceties. Other duties to attend to. Safety of the realm. Et cetera.”  
  
SkekUng grumbles to himself, pacified, or perhaps “pacified” is not the right word. “Mhhmh. I do have a new burden placed on my shoulders.” His nibbling and pawing at the other Skeksis grows more aggressive. “Safety of all Skeksis. All my people.” He has the side of SkekNa’s face in one talon, his weirdly short and unimposing beak on the other side, tongue flicking around the other’s vacant eye socket in what counts with him as gentleness.

“Well-deserved,” assents SkekNa, half perversely enjoying the sensation and half repulsed by it. He tries not to flinch in either direction, toward or away. SkekUng remained his ally those many hundred trine ago, through that brief but intense era of disfavor with the Emperor, when the slaver lost an eye to the peeper and a hand to a rather slower procession of flesh-eating crawlies populating a cleverly-devised airtight tube about his arm; SkekUng brings him small animals for them to torment together for their mutual amusement, or they swipe the occasional Podling or even Gelfling that no one will miss; SkekUng takes eyes at times, from the living or from the dead, and gives them to SkekNa like a fizzgig expecting some reward. It is important to keep SkekUng as a political ally, and for other reasons it is also important to keep SkekUng. The inconvenience of the new General’s occasional lack of boundaries is a small price to pay, if “boundaries” is even a term that could ever possibly occur to SkekNa within the context of his society and his place in it. SkekNa can beat the Podlings because it lies within his power. All SkekNa can do, against anything that lies in SkekUng’s power, is participate in it or resist it. At the end of the day, the suns have set and the suns will rise again and it hardly matters. 

Anyway, he likes SkekUng, as far as liking goes. They’ve rarely separated for more than half an unum during their many trine out rambling the lands, subduing distant and obscure peoples, occasionally depositing a perfunctory load of novel slaves and pets and foodstuffs at the Castle. Usually they stay just long enough to ensure the new help is properly broken in and has enough Gelfling tongue to take commands, then it’s back on the road. It’s more than fortunate, truly, that SkekVar has been lost in this new Gelfling war. Good reason to return to the Castle, more fun when SkekNa’s own are on the ups. They’ve been getting a bit tired on the road anyway, they’re not as young as they used to be when they baited nebrie for sport. The Empire and its enrichment can wait while this political kerfluffle around the Castle is sorted out.

“Ermh.” SkekNa inches back a bit when the General’s tongue slides along the margins of his eyelids, angling for the vacancy behind them. “Poor way to ensure safety of your people, SkekUng. Your toxic drool could infect that–”

“It’s healed over, wear your stupid patch if you’re so bothered.”

“In my own fucking bed? Thought I could count on my esteemed associate not to stick his tongue in my eye socket.” SkekNa swats in annoyance, lightly, with one taloned hand.  
  
“Fair enough. Give me one of your Podlings tomorrow. We’ll have some fun with it.”

SkekNa is quick to forget his brief discomfort as SkekUng returns to chewing on his neck, grazing his own claws down the other’s back. “Much as I would like to agree with your plan, General–”

“Hm!” SkekUng’s attentions grow slightly more rabid at the use of the new title.

“–Gelfling and Podling now rise against the Castle.” SkekNa tries gamely to keep his voice level, unfevered. “We need to conserve the help. Can’t just torture and maim them willy-nilly.”

“Since when were you the responsible one, you half-demolished wreck of a Skeksis?”

“Neither of us are the _responsible_ one, you drooling sadist. Perish the thought. I’m just slightly _smarter_ than you.”

“Just slightly,” SkekUng accedes with mild viciousness, the two now writhing together, “but I am stronger.”

“Agh!” SkekNa’s lips curl back from his teeth in somewhat pained and somewhat indignant pleasure as the other pins him long enough to penetrate him. “Yes–Well–Step carefully here. These–mmh–these lands–much changed, SkekUng.”  
  
“The lands can change around me all they want. _I_ am the same.” There is something a bit off in SkekUng’s eyes, as he stares down at the other with angry thrusts; and it crosses SkekNa’s mind to wonder, ego-soothing new title notwithstanding, whether General SkekUng might not be intimidated by the unprecedented situation. Someone had slain the prior General after all, someone had slain not just SkekVar but three Skeksis within the course of one encounter. That someone was, arguably, Gelfling, but there was much more in play here, many more pieces on the board.

SkekNa is rarely gentle with SkekUng (why would or should he be?). This seems like a moment to be gentle, insofar as SkekNa is capable of that. He wraps his tail around SkekUng’s and whispers so that his naturally shrieky voice is more palatable. “You are the same, my General. Same, but better. You have a new task, a new army. The world has gone mad. World thinks it can defy. Soon we will show them how wrong they are. Rest well tonight. Remember, you meet your army tomorrow.”  



	2. SkekTek

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SkekUng meets the new army, and SkekTek tries his hand at plotting.

SkekTek

“So these are my…Garthim?”

SkekTek bites back a sigh or, worse yet, a wordy retort to the effect of who in the Shard’s lost reaches did SkekUng think had invented “his” Garthim to begin with. Even the term seems to sit heavily on SkekUng’s inept tongue, as though the very attempt at articulation has all but enervated it. 

“Garr-theem, my lord General. A portmanteau, my lord will note, of Gruenak–” The Scientist makes sure to roll his _r_ ’s with the utmost cultivation. “–and Arathim.”

“Yes, yes, I get that.” The new General waves a claw about impatiently. For such a bulky, noxious monstrosity, SkekUng has a disproportionately delicate hand, as bony as SkekTek’s own. 

The two are touring the winding hallways near the apex of the Castle, where the frivolously thick walls have furnished convenient substrate into which to excavate Garthim-sized nooks. There are nooks up here near the Crystal, there are nooks down in the humid depths near the Laboratory, and still more nooks being dug out by blank-gazed Podlings. The whole Castle will be peppered with these damned ugly things waiting like pit-fly larvae about to emerge from holes in your skin, but they are SkekTek’s damned ugly things, fashioned with his own mind and hand, and they are the only thing to bring him pride in Thra only knows how many trine.

Moreover, people have been treating the Scientist with more regard lately. SkekUng, having been abroad during the whole debacle, doesn’t seem to have received that memo. SkekTek subtly wrings his hands together under his mantle, trying to pretend he didn’t just think about grabbing that scalpel out of his work apron pocket and letting the new General in on a lesson he might fathom a bit more expeditiously than mere words, and attempts to ground himself. SkekTek, after all, is the smartest Skeksis in the Castle (or outside of it, come to that); he has many words at the ready, a truly impressive and bombastic lexicon, yet his statesmanship has always suffered. Is statesmanship not simply a matter of having the right words, putting them together in the right order? But no, there’s something more to it, a bearing. Try to think about a bearing, a difference in the spine, a tilt of the head. The Scientist is quiet for a while as they walk and survey the dormant Garthim, SkekUng wiping drool and mumbling wordlessly under his breath beside him, before deciding upon a stratagem.

“In good time, General, in most excellent time, you’ve returned to us. This shadow under which the Castle has fallen–transient, of course, with your help soon mitigated!–is unprecedented. Admittedly, we haven’t been…quite at our ease, lacking old armies, and old General. But now, we have new armies, better armies. They will heed, mindlessly. They will rend, soullessly.” SkekTek stops and raps on the scapular carapace of one of the Garthim, which remains dormant, unresponsive. “They will sleep, dreamlessly. Until awakened at need.” 

SkekUng tilts his unkempt head at the creature, still looking undecided. The Garthim do appear intimidating, tall as a Skeksis, bristling with pincers and plates and many-jointed appendages; yet they stand, still as statues. Before the General can become impatient with the brief pause, which SkekTek has inserted just long enough to instill the proper effect, the Scientist continues: “And to command our new armies, we have the esteemed good fortune to have a new General! The timing could hardly be more–” He stops, wrings his hands to his skinny chest with bowed head. “Forgive! A tragedy, very sad for all Skeksis, what has become of SkekVar.” 

“Mmh. Very sad,” SkekUng nods brusquely, emoting little. It seems it is as SkekTek suspected; neither of them harbored much fondness for dearly departed SkekVar.   
  
“Indeed, a grave loss for us all. Which is all the more reason we’re most fortunate to have you once again among us, my General,” SkekTek resumes, peering up at SkekUng as earnestly as he can. He feels his eye, the inorganic one, twitch involuntarily, casting the sharper but less saturated half of his field of vision up and down over the other Skeksis’ face. 

Sometimes, the Scientist messes with people on purpose, moving the eye around unnervingly (the disempowered, after all, need to take their kicks where they can find them), but this time it is because he is more than a bit nervous about SkekUng’s potential response. SkekVar is dead, SkekSo has…deteriorated significantly if one wishes to put it politely, SkekZok is not stupid enough to want to exchange his spiritual prestige for a political headache, and SkekSil is out of the question. Say this war changes dynamics in the Castle…this is the ideal time for SkekTek to align himself with someone powerful, someone with potential.

Sometimes, potential drools all over the floor. The Scientist subtly eases his toe back from the growing puddle that’s been forming as they stand there examining the Garthim specimen. 

This objective can be accomplished. After all, the existence of the Garthim flatters the both of them, creator and commander. SkekTek resumes self-importantly: “Garthim are, for the time being, imprinted on all Skeksis. They recognize the general morphology, er, that is, the form, the gait, the vocal timbres characteristic of our elevated kind. If it becomes necessary, for disciplinary reasons or for the safety of the realm, they may be–-dis-imprinted from a particular subject, which is one of the exercises we’ll be practicing on them today. That requires a word of command from two separate Skeksis. Except in your case, General, or in the Emperor’s, in which circumstances one person alone could issue such a directive to the Garthim. We’ll be activating all your privileged accesses shortly.”

“Hmm.” This does seem to interest SkekUng, although he’s watching SkekTek’s prosthetic eye more than he’s watching the dormant Garthim (to be fair, the Garthim is currently very boring, as it is standing about doing nothing).

Unnerved by the staring, SkekTek starts pacing a tight circle, gesticulating with all the drama this watershed moment in the history of Skeksis biotechnology merits. “Any Skeksis may activate or deactivate the Garthim cluster nearest them, using a vocal command. Soon we’ll go over that exercise, here. Only the General or the Emperor may activate or otherwise command the army entire; and of course, any command from either of those two parties would override any command issued by another Skeksis. Let’s see, other things you ought to know _a priori_ … If guarding something or someone, Garthim will move aside for any Skeksis, unless that Skeksis has been dis-imprinted. If any Skeksis is under threat, Garthim will attack the threat, again with that last exception.”

“You seem very concerned about…dis-imprinting.” Annoyingly enough, SkekUng has started to mirror SkekTek’s pacing.

Feeling slightly menaced, SkekTek gulps a deep breath and whirls to snap in the other’s face, “We can’t have a turncoat having administrative access to the Garthim, now can we, General?”

“Who’s a turncoat?!”

“No one! Not yet anyway! I don’t know! It’s a failsafe,” screeches SkekTek. “Are you a General or not?! You need details, eventualities–”

  
“You want details, here’s one: If you don’t lose that smug expression…”

The Scientist finds himself slammed back against the wall. The dormant Garthim just to his right abruptly springs into motion with a clatter and writhing of limbs. SkekUng, his reeking face right up against SkekTek’s, recoils with a backward jump. Who knew such a bulky, ungainly, piss-poor excuse for a Skeksis could even manage to launch himself off the ground? Delight at SkekUng’s spooked look and his unexpected leap prompts SkekTek to wave his hands about hastily, an effort to keep them from meeting in an entirely rude and possibly perilous show of applause.

“Not to worry, my General, not to worry. She won’t hurt you. I was getting to this point in my explications, and, had I not been rather rudely interrupted…” SkekTek, seizing advantage of this rare moment of power, leans casually against the frenetically twitching Garthim and stokes its flank. “Ah, well, let bygones be bygones, might we, SkekUng? Before we got–shall we say, distracted–by some petty squabble, as Skeksis do, my lord, as Skeksis do–There were some matters I had yet to clarify.” 

SkekUng is standing there like a dolt, his hackles slowly smoothing back down, looking both irate and a little impressed at the Scientist’s casual handling of the Garthim. He takes a wary step closer. “All right, clarify away.”

“As I mentioned, Garthim will attack if they see a Skeksis under threat. They’ll even emerge from their dormant state to enact this particular function. This one saw, well, me being attacked. She then saw that you, the, how do I put this reverently–” SkekTek gives up with an exaggerated shrug. “ –the attacker, was also a Skeksis. Now, she doesn’t know what to do.”

SkekUng chortles. “She’s confused?”

“That might be stretching it. She has no mind, no soul, no feelings. She’s…received conflicting input. It seems the data have canceled each other out.”

The General edges closer, still a bit leery. Ah, but this all bodes very well indeed for SkekTek. The General is unknowledgeable and uncertain about his own army, and SkekTek will have to be the one to teach him how not to be. The Scientist, of course, can keep a secret, keep the new General’s unease regarding his new army secret, can be a good ally indeed, and good allies deserve good rewards. To say nothing of needing to teach SkekUng all the commands and different tiers of access and the different numbers and geometries of the Garthim formations…

“So she won’t try and slice my hand off? We already have SkekNa for all our one-handed–Skeksis needs.” 

SkekUng tries to sound like his perpetually-disgruntled, perpetually-skeptical self, but SkekTek can hear the strain of unease and keeps a straight face with phenomenal effort. “Perish the thought. What just occurred, as I said, a mistake, conflicting input. This–” The Scientist gestures down the spiraling hall at the Garthim in their nooks. “ –your army. All of them, yours.”

“Good,” the General murmurs under his breath, drawing the word out, as if holding some internal dialogue with himself underneath the word to convince himself of its veracity. “Good, good.” He puts a slightly tremulous hand out and pets the Garthim on her broad, flaring cranial shield. The Garthim is not a pet and does not respond to petting, but she also doesn’t respond in any way at all, alarming or otherwise.

“Hm.” SkekUng, emboldened, paces around the creature, patting and rapping lightly with knuckles, pulling on a limb to extend it and examine its numerous joints. “And you grew all these from material from two Gruenak and one Arathim?” 

“One Gruenak, and one Arathim. The first Gruenak went into the fiery shaft, my lord.” 

SkekUng sets the Garthim’s limb back down and eyes SkekTek with renewed interest. “How did it get there?” 

“I pushed it. It defied me.”   


“And the other Gruenak?”   
  
  
“I beat its brains out. It defied me.” 

The General peers in closer, very close now, but not threatening. “Did you really? Hmh. I might have misjudged you.”

“I am a personage of many oft-overlooked talents,” SkekTek admits pragmatically.

“Hmmh. And you built your own eye, too. Fully functional?” SkekUng’s face leaves the sharp, colorful center of SkekTek’s visual field, appearing on the right, now very sharp indeed but blanched of color.

“Essentially. In some ways, better. Much greater acuity, at night in particular. Little distinction between hues though.”

“Decent trade-off. No one needs color at night.” SkekUng is leaning in much too close now, sniffing at the prosthetic eye. It cannot fail to elude SkekTek that, with his own missing hand and now his missing eye, he bears a certain semblance to SkekNa. Everyone knows that SkekUng, inasmuch as SkekUng can be, is inordinately fond of SkekNa; almost everyone suspects that SkekNa’s maimed form has at least something to do with this, stirring some sort of perverseness or ancient sense of protectiveness or both in his more esteemed colleague. 

SkekTek doesn’t think he likes where this might be going. “Careful with that. Very delicate. Took half an unum of sleepless work to design, assemble, calibrate, install…” 

SkekUng backs off a bit, only enough for his whiskery muzzle to avoid poking the eyepiece, leaving his chin barely brushing the top of the Scientist’s brow. “Of course. Delicate work. Something I know nothing about, you understand.” The General sniffs again, not moving away, the Scientist’s feathers bristling with mixed revulsion and a somewhat involuntary intrigue.   
  
“I can see that,” volunteers SkekTek.

“It seems I’ll require your–your more _nuanced_ help–as we ready our Garthim to take Skarith.”

_Our_ Garthim. This is much better. This, SkekTek can work with. He ducks his head and lets SkekUng sloppily groom his nape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aight, so this is now slated to have four chapters. The third and initially presumptively-final one is already written, but I think it needs another between this one and that one.


	3. Garthim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A compact solidified. Also, SkekUng and SkekNa make an annoyance of themselves in the laboratory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was going to the be third/last chapter, then I decided it should be the fourth/last chapter, now I've decided it's the third/second-to-last chapter.

Garthim

The Garthim has a malfunctioning pincer. This issue is not uncommon, as the pincers are somewhat outsized and require robust health to operate. The Garthim lurks on the floor of the laboratory, eyes and ears processing but uncomprehending, none of the input eliciting any programmed response.

“–can’t open the pincer?” repeats SkekTek in the foreground, exasperated at the interruption to his work. “That’s all? And both of you felt the need to escort it down here, for a routine issue?”

Behind the Scientist, SkekUng and SkekNa mill about a tad conspiratorially. 

SkekUng attempts, “This keeps happening with them.”

“Have you been ensuring they get their vitamin injections while they’re dormant?” SkekTek rounds a bit crossly on SkekNa. “I understand that’s _your_ province now, since the Podling slaves are doing it? Really, expecting drained Podlings to know how to administer–”

“Who else is going to do it, you half-metal abomination?” laments SkekNa. “Hundreds of these brutes! The time, the labor– The Podlings are mortified of them even after draining, I mean, as much as they can be, and so they do a shit job of it–” He is rather rapidly working himself up into a lather. “–And guess whose head it all lands on if things go wrong? Not the great General’s, not the clever Scientist’s, but the one person who’s expected to keep the help well-greased at all times. If these Garthim start falling apart, it won’t be your necks on the block, no, although I daresay it _should_ be–”

_“Hssh_.” SkekUng grabs his compatriot about the throat and chest with the crooks of his elbows, a gesture something between a restraint and an embrace. “We talked about this.” The General’s voice grows almost inaudible. “Have I ever put your neck on the line for my own?”

SkekNa huffs, exasperated, a bit relieved, allows himself to be subdued. “Not you. _He_ was talking shit about me.” He jabs his hook-hand at SkekTek.  
  
SkekTek’s face is close to the Garthim’s as the former rolls his eye with an anguished, long-suffering look. “I was merely _pointing out–”_

“Yes, I know. No matter. We can pitch this Garthim down the chute for all I care,” the General says dismissively.

The Scientist claws at what few wispy feathers remain on his head. “Then why did you bring it down here for me to fix?! I swear by all the fetid breath of Thra, if you two keep wasting my time with your trivial imbecile demands–”

SkekUng suddenly lurches in close to SkekTek, incidentally bringing with him the still-pinioned SkekNa, three heads knocking together and three voices uttering sundry curses that bear no auditory cues for the Garthim watching them cluelessly. “You’re pretty stupid for someone so smart,” the General hisses in an undertone. “Shut the door.”

“There is no door,” whines SkekTek, rubbing his cranium with a tragically beleaguered expression. “Hence that meddling Chamberlain forever making my workspace his personal sitting room.”

“It’s right there.” SkekNa jabs with his hook again, at the ceiling, where a somewhat rusted rolling door reclines on an equally-rusted steel framework.  
  
  
The Scientist pales, then flushes. “Yes, well…it’s rusted. Can’t use it.”

In a stage whisper, SkekNa hypothesizes, “Door is rusted from disuse because Scientist is too weak to close it.”

“I’d like to see you try to do anything remotely dextrous with that ghastly hook of yours–”

“‘Fuck’s sake, both of you shut up,” snarls SkekUng, thrusting SkekNa at SkekTek and leaving them glaring at each other as he vanishes from the Garthim’s field of sight. There is a belabored series of metallic shrieks and clatters, then a rolling thump and a final clang. The General comes back into view. “Door closed. Happy now?”

“Now that the whole Castle has heard you closing it, yes, delighted,” SkekTek returns dryly.

“Tell them I was testing it. For security of the laboratory,” SkekUng shrugs, nosing back in between the other two. “Now that we can be assured of certain–persons–not sticking their beaks in, look sharp.”

The Scientist tilts his head with interest, his cybernetic eye roving about. “What for? You could have asked me to meet somewhere else secure, rather than this whole–pretense.”

SkekUng wipes the side of his mouth with the back of one hand. “We tried. As I recall, you said you were too busy with your important research.”

“What he said was: ‘There is not enough essence in all of Thra to get me alone in any chamber with you perversions of nature,’” corrects SkekNa. He pauses reflectively for a moment, and, the next thought apparently following reasonably upon his inner discourse, admonishes the Scientist, “Your crystal communication device is broken. Still dark on SkekLi’s end.”

“Firstly, it’s a prototype. One might appreciate the fact that it even allowed us to communicate with an operative on the far end of Skarith for as long as it did. Secondly, SkekLi probably broke it himself traipsing around with the Arathim, you know how clumsy he is. What would you have me do, attach the crystal device to a hollerbat so it can return to us on its own if something goes amiss?”

“That’s not a bad idea at all, actually.” SkekUng makes himself at home on a bench, curling his tail up around his bulk. The bench creaks, and the Scientist winces. “If you can make Garthim, I’m sure you can make…crystal bats.”   
  
  
The Garthim’s eyes focus more sharply for a moment, the terms “Garthim” and “make” skirting some command algorithm, failing to pass, and shutting the creature down again.  
  
  
“Lovely. Crystal bats. I’ll add that to my prodigious list of projects. If you want to prioritize this, you’re going to need to wait on the phegnese modifications.”

“Yes, fine, no one uses phegnese these days anyway.”

“By which SkekUng means, he’s too fat in his reverend age to even fit on one of the poor old things,” SkekNa says helpfully.

The Scientist sighs, casts the silent Garthim a look as though it might help him remove the visitors who seem intent upon going nowhere anytime soon, and begins puttering around in a drawer full of labeled animal hides. He grumbles loudly about various species of bat, holding up different skins and lamenting their poor preservation, while the other two bicker in the background.  
  
  
“That’s not fat, SkekNa, that’s muscle.”

“I have to be frank, SkekUng, I’ve flayed a lot of different things alive in my day, and I’ve never seen any kind of a muscle that looks like a big beer gut.”  


“Come here and say that to my face.”   
  
  
SkekNa chortles, leering a bit, and hops up onto the bench, which protests more loudly still, leaning into the General’s face and sliding his hook around the back of SkekUng’s neck. “That, sir, is a beer gut. Comes of consuming beer, ale, wine, fatty foods, sweets, the blood and marrow of your foes, and not exercising enough.”   
  
  
“There’s muscle _under_ the fat, one-eye.”

  
“I’m going to require proof of that.”

A tussle ensues on the bench, which miraculously refrains from breaking, ending with SkekUng holding SkekNa down by the scruff and aggressively poking his tongue into his earhole. SkekNa quivers and vocalizes something between a snarl and a happy mewl, oblivious to the audience or perhaps only too cognizant of it, while SkekTek grimaces and shakes a disintegrating hollerbat skin at them. “Would you mind terribly just holding off? This is exactly why I hesitate to hold any sort of conclave with the both of you together. Filthy, debauched, indecorous–”

  
“Prude,” SkekNa murmurs, as though delivering the most scathing of all possible insults.

Appearing frantic to distract the two before they start to distract each other again, SkekTek slides the whole bat specimen drawer out of the faunal reference collection cabinet and totes it awkwardly over to them. Depositing it on their laps before they can object, the Scientist says a bit too cheerfully, “Here you go! Bats! Big bats, small bats, green bats, spotted bats, all in deplorable condition I fear. I simply don’t have the time for their upkeep, and no Gelfling for interns these days. So it goes. Have a look at these. Give some thought to your ‘crystal bat’ proposition.”   
  
  
The Scientist comes back over to the Garthim with a look of relief, resuming his shaking of a small vial to agitate its contents. He mutters to the Garthim, “Don’t worry, SkekTek will fix up a nice solution for you, good for building proteins, get your pincer muscles good as new in no time at–Oh _what now!?”_

  
In the background, the Slave-Master and the General are playing with the bat skins like childlings with dolls. “Oh no, merciful General, please don’t skin me alive!” squeaks SkekNa, holding up one of the specimens and making it pantomime abject terror. “Too late!” wails SkekUng, making another specimen slump mournfully in his grip, “We’re _already_ nothing but skins!”

“For fuck’s sake!” shrieks SkekTek as the two collapse into uproarious laughter at their own antics (and at the Scientist’s indignation, no doubt). “I thought you were here on serious business. What’s going on? Are we going to send a search party out for SkekLi?”

The other two Skeksis quiet their ruckus a bit grudgingly. SkekUng sighs. “Look, we’d love to know why SkekLi’s communications went dark, but we don’t have anyone to spare to look for him. Skirmishes, battles, ambushes erupting everywhere. Arathim, as you know, are in league with Gelfling now, so clearly SkekLi failed on that count.”

“Do you think they–did something to him?” SkekTek forgets his puttering, sets the vial down, and starts pacing.

“Probably not. We’d know if they did, I think. They’d–find a way to let us know, as a warning.”

“They’re Gelfling, General, not Skeksis.”

“The Arathim aren’t Gelfling.”

“On the bright side,” SkekNa puts in, still idly fiddling with the bat skin, “could be worse ways for SkekLi to go out. Spider fanatic, masochist.”

“How do you–”

“You don’t want to know how we know,” SkekUng says vividly. SkekTek snaps his beak shut. “Anyway,” the General resumes, “we’d find him if we could afford to right now. He’d be particularly valuable, at the moment, I think.”

  
SkekTek cocks his head at the slight change in tone. “Valuable in what way? Does this have to do with why you closed the door by any chance?”

  
“It might.” SkekNa beckons the Scientist closer with his good hand. “Would you say SkekLi has any…particular loyalties?”  
  
  
SkekTek snorts. “Yes, to himself.”

“That goes without saying.”  


“Umm…SkekOk?”

  
“SkekOk is useless,” comments the General. He grumps under his breath and wipes a string of drool away. “What I mean is, it’s wartime. Peril doesn’t know a slave from an emperor. We all saw or at least heard what happened to SkekLach. Say–perish the thought–say something should happen to our wise Emperor…”

“Ohhh.” SkekTek sighs in exasperation at the others’ attempts to be subtle, which have been vague and as blunt as a spatula by turns. “If the unthinkable should happen, far be it from me to guess where SkekLi’s support should land up.”

The General gives him a meaningful look. _And yours?  
  
  
_“This talk is neither productive nor entirely free of a note of treason, if heard out of context, my lords. I’m not going to idle about with you descanting upon hypotheticals while you cause further degradation to my chiropteran specimens. I have important work–”

SkekNa arches up from the bench just enough to pull SkekTek in closer by grappling that damnable hook around the back of his neck. “Yes, exactly, you often _work_ through meals so you might not be aware. Emperor SkekSo has been absent from table these past six days. For him, that’s not normal.”   
  
  
“I saw him the evening of the second day. He was abed. Looked awful. He hasn’t taken any visitors other than the Ritual Master since.” SkekUng’s perpetually-startled-looking eyes dart around, settle on SkekTek’s face with a frightening intensity. “He’ll hang on like a finger vine. Might rebound from this bout. But it’s getting worse, slowly but surely. Might be next unum, might be fifty trine from now. No matter. SkekSo is dying.”

A shudder of intrigue, or perhaps of patent Skeksis dread at the mere possibility of decease, runs over SkekTek. “I…see. He really must be, or must think he is. There’s been no message to me, no demand for a remedy.”

“That’s because he knows it’s over,” nods SkekNa, using his quiet voice reserved for civility or secrecy, quite a bit different from his typical nasal bellow–This, almost a pleasant voice, one SkekTek appears to lean into just a bit. “Whatever he did to his sceptre, to himself, that he unleashed at Stone-in-the-Wood as we hear it told, there is no physical remedy in Thra for that. SkekSo knows it, and so he shutters himself in with his priest. Attempts with futile scented smokes and incantations to ward off the terror of death.”

SkekNa and SkekUng exchange a loaded glance of quiet sadistic glee, after the familiar manner of a pair who have shared many such glances. 

“I personally,” the General rejoins, “think it’s a shame that SkekSo has so little trust now in your accomplished art, Scientist, that he didn’t even make you aware of his illness. Nor did the priest. Nor did Chamberlain.”

SkekTek’s face runs a quiet gamut of indignation, smugness, unease, and contempt as SkekUng speaks. The Scientist looks away from his interlocutors for a long beat, huddled on the floor leaning with his elbows on the bench. He takes several deep, measured breaths before looking back up at the other two Skeksis. “I see, then, in whom my own trust would be ill placed. SkekSo, it seems, does not want my aide. If Thra comes for him, I am not for SkekZok, nor for Chamberlain.”

The General’s odd, grim, unkempt countenance positively beams. “Ah, you see, SkekNa, I told you the Scientist is a person of good taste.”

The conspiracy has been relatively unelaborate, straightforward, lacking the days– or weeks-long dance sometimes needed to establish confidence and demonstrate sincerity. Thanks to the Garthim, the political fortunes of SkekUng and SkekTek are already almost inextricable. Both know this. SkekNa knows it as well, although he stands ready to flay the Scientist at the slightest whiff of betrayal. The Garthim with the malfunctioning pincer hears and sees all of this, but grasps none of it.

Even so, when SkekNa asks, “Do you think it knows? What should we do with it?”, the three Skeksis lead the Garthim to the shaft over the fiery gulf and push it forward, laughing and jostling amongst themselves. Their three faces, pressed together, peering down, quickly become smaller and smaller in course of the plummet and then vanish. The last thing the Garthim remembers is fire. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those who know me know that SkekLi will find any excuse to sneak into a story. This does have precedent in the YA novels, where Li is attempting (unsuccessfully) to supervise an Arathim ambush on the Grottan and apparently has some kind of crystal device with which to communicate with the Castle.


	4. Thra-kind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Garthim are out in force, but what is an army without some training?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warning: This is quite gory, and vaguely obscene.

Typically the Garthim raids conclude in capture, the ghastly excuse for a hand, perhaps aided by the pincer to disable a foot, the bundling into some net or cage-shaped wheel. If an organized counter-attack is mounted, it’s the pincer, lopping heads or impaling. The general message the Skeksis seem be sending is that resistance will get you killed; but occasionally, to undercut any sense of predictability, a contingent of Garthim will slaughter, say, an entire extended Podling family on its knees begging for its life; or a band of fighters, those who can be subdued without being killed at least, will be taken alive rather than slaughtered wholesale.

  
None of the resistance cells or the small settlements and family groups quivering under lockdown can be sure of the Skeksis’ rationale, of what to expect when Garthim smash through the wall or catch you out furtively checking your traps. Typically the presence or absence of Skeksis themselves amid the Garthim doesn’t make the outcome any more predictable, _except_ that Skeksis are bound to be present when a known cell is located and taken out. Resistance leaders are kept aside for particularly unenviable torments carried out before a captive audience, before being re-routed to, presumably, the rumored draining pit in the depths of the Castle (perhaps a mercy, by then). SkekUng, the Skeksis’ new General who also sometimes styles himself the Garthim Master, and the one with the eye-patch and hook-hand, SkekNa, are the two most often seen abroad with the Garthim or supervising various tortures and executions.

  
Everyone who hasn’t been living under a rock, and even most of them–even most of the rocks themselves–know about the drainings and the tortures by now. It is hard talk, but necessary, to plan, to ready oneself for a ferocious fight in hopes of being eliminated honorably on the spot rather than chancing a trip alive to the Castle. Dapak tried for her fight to be as hard as her talk, not knowing where her family or her lover had gone or if they yet lived, trying with her bolas to entangle at least a small part of the writhing mass of legs that came at her, aiming desperately for an eye with her dagger (why did the eye look vaguely sad, even as it was flat and without sentiment?). 

  
But here she sprawls instead, in a kind of enclosed roofless courtyard, with a small group of Gelfling and Podlings, and nine of the Garthim. She returns to her senses while some sort of different ordeal seems to be in preparation. Dapak, her prior fight displaced by frozen dread, doesn’t move from her sprawl on the flagstones. She exchanges silent, hopeless glances with the other Gelfling and Podlings, watches the stone-still Garthim. Still, for now.

  
“…almost out of time,” the Skeksis General snarls in undertones, brushing past her and the cowering others indifferently, clanking and swishing with armor and oddly lacy layers of fabric. “Emperor wants another five contingent of Garthim ready, week’s end.”

  
“…every faith in you, my General,” murmurs the smaller, eye-patch Skeksis at his side, in what must pass for soothing tones. “We’ll train through the nights, in shifts, if we must.”

  
So these nine Garthim here must be…new (whether that meant full-grown, recently hatched, or crafted by some obscene magic, none could say)? What sort of _training_ would a novice Garthim need? Dapak thinks of her family, her clan–No, no, of _all the Gelfling_ , for the clans had been revealed to be a Skeksis lie crafted to sow division; but she thinks of her homeland among the apeknots, and her pet sogbird, and the first girl she kissed not four unum ago, under the water, reeds and swimmers brushing against them, their gills flaring rapidly. 

  
One of the two Skeksis, Dapak can’t see them now from her position, barks an order, and one of the Garthim springs to life and goes straight for a Vapra ( _fellow Gelfling, we’re all one_ ), pincer held closed to create a stiletto-like point that thrusts in below the solar plexus and swipes downward. Entrails spill. The pale-haired Gelfling stands in a stupor, holding their guts in their hands, before falling. The other Gelfling and Podlings stay frozen where they are or mill around uncertainly. Surely, someone must help–but what good will help do? The victim is doomed, and anyone who tries to help is doomed, and they are all doomed regardless.

  
“Good, good.” This time it’s definitely the maimed one, SkekNa, striding in closer with his strange limping but swift gait, leering in a way that defies description, and this one shouts some other order. The remaining Garthim emerge from their stasis, move frenetically, close in on the hapless Gelfling. Dapak can see nothing more than a pack of dark, hulking forms, hear the death rattle and some attempt from the Vapran at forming a coherent last statement of defiance, as chunks of flesh and sprays of pallid blood sail out of the fray. 

  
The General, SkekUng, wades in, snarls another command, and the Garthim back away. The two Skeksis crouch side by side, more like ruffnaw than like one always thought the Lords of yore comported themselves, looking on with necks extended and toothy beaks salivating. There is nothing recognizable in the homogenous puddle of flesh, blood, shredded fabric, bone shards. Dapak sobs then loudly, once, head thrown back to the multi-hued dusk and hands clawed against the flagstones, more for the grief than for the fear.

  
The two Skeksis prowl, on their fours, even the bulky General looking surprisingly at his ease in that quadrupedal gait, through the mess, stopping to lap up bits of the thoroughly disarticulated Gelfling. Even SkekNa slinks like something out of a childling’s nightmare, evidently not impeded by his metal claw of a forearm; he is less physically imposing than the General, but perhaps more frightening, pausing every now and then with his tail twitching to watch with his one gleaming eye while SkekUng noses among the gore. Eventually SkekNa prowls up under the General’s chin, rubbing and nosing at his superior like a pet kiznet, in some gesture of–Admiration? Affection? Thra forbid, arousal? Dapak tries to look away, but her gaze is transfixed upon the grisly scene.

  
A Gelfling and a Podling make a game attempt, weaponless, to rush the two Skeksis. SkekNa screeches with laughter even while snarling in affront and bats them aside, his hook angled perilously, catching them across the abdomen and the clavicular region, respectively.

  
Dapak loses track of the drama unfolding at the center of the courtyard. She had wound up near the edge, and now two other Skeksis are walking nearby, still bipedal like civilized creatures. Apparently many of these monsters have been mutilated, presumably by each other, because one of them also has a missing eye–but, unlike SkekNa, he has a mechanical replacement instead of a patch–and another is missing all of his front teeth except for one lone fang on the right that seems to have been permitted to remain there for irony’s sake.   
  
  
“…so you see how much the Garthim have progressed since your absence, SkekLi,” croaks the mechanical-eye Skeksis. They’ve paused a few paces from Dapak, and she can’t help turning her attention to them, wondering whether they’ll call the Garthim over to kill her as the other was just killed.

  
The partially-toothless Skeksis, who is relatively scrawny, peers left and right and up and down with an unreadable game face. When he speaks, the very tiniest tip of his tongue laps out over the edge his beak, as though to compensate for the lacking teeth that would have naturally helped him articulate his words. “Impressive indeed, SkekTek. Such alien creatures, yet familiar…”

  
SkekLi murmurs something in some strange tongue, and the nearest Garthim, the only one within earshot, trundles past Dapak–the ends of the legs or tentacles, or whatever, brush against her upper arm–and halts before the skinny Skeksis as though awaiting orders.

  
“Oh–” The mechanized-eye Skeksis, evidently the famed Scientist, SkekTek, clacks his beak shut in haste, and then he pauses with an unnerved expression, and then he resumes, “Don’t speak to them in that tongue, Satirist.”

  
“Ah? I beg your pardon, Scientist, they–” SkekLi leans up on his tiptoes, peering into the Garthim’s face. “These are…Gruenak, SkekTek, they know their own tongue although, alas, the Skeksis, mostly, do not.” His tapered face tilts up at the Garthim before him, his dark, bright eyes narrowing. “SkekTek, what have–” 

  
“Nothing more than was needed, for the Empire’s glory,” hisses SkekTek. He hesitates, then appends a bit fretfully, “Don’t overthink it, SkekLi. Forget their language. For the best. Gruenak are gone.”

  
“Yes, I thought, these long trine, that Gruenak were gone, and yet–”   
  
  
“ _Stop._ ”

  
“What have you done?” 

  
“That is none of your concern, you and your poetic sentimentality.” SkekTek shakes his head as though trying to dislodge something stuck in the scant remnants of his headfeathers. “Be silent, before you’re silenced perforce.” 

  
“Ah, SkekLi, there you are!” someone says far too loudly, the General evidently, stalking over, now bipedal again, regalia flowing and clattering. The Satirist and the Scientist both bow, profusely. 

  
“I was worried about you, Satirist,” murmurs SkekUng, close enough for Dapak to discern the words, approaching SkekLi with an apparently friendly aggression to which the latter is clearly attempting to respond appropriately despite some sort of opposing sentiment. SkekLi bristles just for an instant, then ducks his head with a complete lack of expression, allowing the General’s maw to close lightly around the back of his neck, while SkekTek subtly attempts to inch away. 

  
SkekLi proffers, “I am grateful, my lord General, to be back amongst my kith.” 

  
“Good, good, glad to have you back in one piece. We’ll discuss, of course, at a more convenient time, your failure to mobilize the Arathim.” 

  
“Of course, my lord. There were, with regard to that, some unforeseen circumstances, but I own my–” 

  
“Yes, yes.” SkekUng’s tailtip lashes. He bites down harder for a moment on the Satirist’s neck, then lets go with a blithe indifference. “Strange times, SkekLi, none can predict. But, as I was telling you unum ago before your comms went dark, these Garthim are a game-changer.”

  
“As I knew, at once, when I made them,” SkekTek puts in, rather defensively, at which point Dapak sees clearly that the Skeksis are not a united front. If only the Gelfling had known about that, as well, but again it’s far too late, and she knows she will never be the one to see that this intelligence reaches the rebellion. She is gone already. If there were any chance of it being otherwise, they wouldn’t be speaking these matters before her very face as though she had all the sentience of an ottoman.

  
“Mhh, indeed,” SkekNa sidles in, also oddly defensive, “our esteemed Scientist can’t be owed enough thanks for the provision of our new army. Heartless, soulless--” He casts an unmistakable glance in the direction of the Satirist. “However, you would both do well to remember that the more martial among us are best equipped to handle this…novel technology.”

  
SkekTek bristles noticeably, and SkekUng, apparently more graciously inclined toward the Scientist, jostles SkekNa playfully but with some small element of rebuke. “SkekNa, of all people, you should know never to underestimate the bloodlust of any Skeksis. Bashed in the skull of the last Gruenak alive, this one did. SkekTek, go on, help with the training. There’s a Gelfling right here.”

  
All eyes turn on Dapak, as casually as they would on a hunk of bread or a crawlie on the windowsill, and that lack of fanfare is the worst part of the nightmare. The Scientist smirks, his mechanized eye tilting up once, down once, rapidly, then he snarls something at the Garthim standing close at hand. There is a movement swifter than Dapak would have anticipated, even after having dealt with Garthim during the capture of her encampment, and then a hot and steadily pulsing wet rush where her right arm used to be. Her head is promptly light from rapid oxygen loss, and she falls at their feet, gasping for air, her left hand grasping vainly toward the torrent of blood exiting the stump of her right shoulder. 

  
“See?” The General’s voice sounds far away now, doubtless because Dapak is dying. “Never underestimate the viciousness of an intellectual.” His voice seems to draw closer, and the Gelfling is vaguely aware of teeth where her shoulder hand been, a tongue where her upper arm had been, lapping up her blood like ale straight from a tap. Darkness is seeping in around the edges of vision, and the last thing she sees after the Scientist’s smirk and the Satirist’s barely-contained grimace are swallowed up is the leering one-eyed face of SkekNa. SkekNa is nuzzling up against the General, licking away any blood that escapes the corner of his mouth.

  
If there were still any doubt in Dapak’s receding mind that she is dying, SkekNa’s next words would have erased it. Heard only by SkekUng and by herself, he murmurs treasonously, “You’re right of course, my General. Current Emperor does not understand that. When he dies, we’ll all be the better for it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was determined to complete this story before resuming my updates to Out Of Hand, owing to my deranged wish to inflict emotional whiplash. Just when you're starting to sympathize with SkekNa and SkekUng... So, anyway, expect updates to that story to resume shortly.
> 
> Also, yeah, SkekLi was not supposed to be here, but here he is.


End file.
